Punjab Agricultural University demolishes 'faulty' speed breakers ahead of CM visit

LUDHIANA: A brief visit by the Punjab chief minister to Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) was all it took for university officials to remove faulty speed breakers, a demand both staff and students had been repeatedly making.
However, requests by staff and students over the past three weeks did not spur officials to action like the CM's visit did. The administration took swift action on Thursday evening, when the visit of Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann and a few of his cabinet colleagues was officially confirmed.
The CM and his cabinet minister visited the city on Friday to attend a cabinet meeting in Circuit House, which is near the PAU campus. Sources said that the CM's cavalcade passed through the university on its way to Circuit House. The faulty speed breakers were built around three weeks ago, when a university student died of injuries suffered in an accident on campus. To check speeding, authorities hastily got the the speed breakers constructed.
A student said, "We have raised the issue of speedbreakers that were not up to the standards of road safety and could cause accidents. However, our objections were ignored. After hearing about the CM's visit, the speedbreakers were demolished."
A staff member maintained that the speedbreakers were demolished for security reasons as they would slow down the cavalcade. "When we called them unsafe and requested authorities to demolish them, our demands were ignored," he added.
The same day, PAU assistant director communications, T S Riar said that the speedbreakers were indeed demolished for the CM's visit. "We had installed 12 cemented speedbreakers in April to check speeding, but these were demolished before the CM's visit. Now, we will install speedbreakers recommended by the transport authority," he said. Officials also said that cases of accidents had increased in the past few weeks.